The Madness of March: Picking a Perfect Bracket

March Madness is upon us. It is the time of the year where people who don’t even watch college basketball can fill out a bracket for a chance to win prizes, the biggest of which is winning one million dollars per year for the rest of your life from Warren Buffet.

Sounds pretty simple, right? Just correctly pick the one out of nine quintillion bracket choices, and you will never need to work again. This feat has yet to be completed, but here is a guide to the best and most creative ways to pick the perfect bracket.

The first option is to pick the favorites. Yes, your odds are not likely and there is almost always a team that wins games out of nowhere, but are odds really even in your favor at any time for this? First overall seeds are your best friend and safest bet. First off, and the most obvious reason, they have been the best teams all year, and second, since 1985, there have been 35 National Championship games, and 22 have been won by one seeds.

Next off, you can pick the mascots of schools. Whether it is an animal or team you like, or if they are more likely to win in a fight, you can pick based off of mascots. Teams like the Blue Devils (Duke), Wildcats (Arizona, Kentucky, Villanova) and any bird (Kansas, Louiseville, Creighton, Iowa) are great options because of the high-quality combination of a fierce mascot and a strong team. Yes, this option might see a bit out there, but sometimes going off the table with your choices is good when your odds are one to nine quintillion.

Third, you can pick the best vacation destinations to visit based on school location. Depending on your ideal vacation, things could get interesting. If you are more of a beach, tropical fan, schools like Florida, Miami and San Diego State will make it far in your bracket. If you are more of a winter and snow fan, schools such as Syracuse, BYU or Michigan could be close to your final game.

Lastly, the coin flip. Yes, this is the most basic option but may be the most effective. In March Madness, anything is possible. We have seen teams that have barely made it into the Madness beat the best teams and make a run deep into the tournament. Each game seems to be a coin flip anyways, so why not actually flip a coin to choose the winner of each game?

The experts have never gotten this right and sometimes the most creative ways are the most successful. Like the games, the brackets are also a lot of madness. My advice: be creative as ever and to just pray that you are the one out of nine quintillion to get it right.